


running to make it home

by stickmarionette



Category: Football RPF
Genre: BFFs, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Family, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're gonna actually come live with us, right?" Cesc asks, like he's reading Leo's mind. "When we finally settle on a place, I mean."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>For a split second Leo's confused about why he's even asking. "For the summer, yeah. Of course."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"What about after that? When were you gonna tell us about Newell's? I had to find out from Geri."</i>
</p><p>Leo goes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	running to make it home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meretricula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/gifts).



> meretricula prompted me with "baby dream team and the beach house in ibiza" (more on which later). This was meant to be for the 3 sentence ficlet meme, but I guess I had a bit more to say.
> 
> Title from [In the Heights (music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda)](http://genius.com/Lin-manuel-miranda-it-wont-be-long-now-lyrics).

Leo's phone buzzes in the middle of Maxi's post-training talk. Maxi - the boss, he has to think of him as the boss - looks up with a thunderous frown like he's fully ready to eat faces, and subsides without a peep when he sees who the culprit is.

"Sorry," Leo mouths silently. He's irrationally annoyed when Maxi - the boss, goddammit it - waves him off. If anyone else left their phone on by mistake, their ears would be ringing. But these days even the boss, an ex-team mate of his who used to ruffle his hair violently and call him _pibe_ , doesn't want to treat him like just another player.

Leo might be old and slow and injury-prone, he might only be up for an hour of game time a week in a bad league, but he's still a footballer. That's the whole point.

He showers, gets changed and makes damn sure to say something to every other player before he heads out. It's not easy or fun, especially when they all look at him with wide-eyed, barely concealed awe, like he's going to smite them for the next misplaced pass, but he's gotta try or they'll never get over it. At least that's what Antonella says, and she's always worth listening to.

Outside, there's the usual group of fans clutching shirts, who start yelling and rattling the fence as soon as he pokes his head out. Leo takes a second to wave apologetically at the security guys before heading over to the screaming horde.

It's all his fault for encouraging them, or so he's constantly told. And he gets it. He doesn't want to make anyone's life hard. But the other reason he's here at all is to get a chance for these people - his people - to have a piece of him, to make up for not having been here before. He can't do that from inside a bubble.

A skinny kid in last season's Barca shirt actually bursts into tears when Leo stops in front of him, and it's all Leo can do to hold his hand through the gap in the fence and murmur soothingly in the voice he uses when his kids are upset.

"It's okay. I'm here."

"Th - thank you," the kid says between hiccups. "I - I'm actually a Central fan, but I watch every game for you."

It hits Leo like being socked in the stomach, even though it's nothing he hasn't heard before. Once, he'd have been worth whatever this kid has to pay for his ticket.

Leo's phone buzzes a couple more times while he's signing shirts and smiling for photos, which just confirms his suspicions. There aren't too many people he lets bug him like that. By the time he gets around to actually checking it, he's not at all surprised to be greeted with _8_ _new messages in group chat DREAM TEAM 87 FUCK YEAH_.

The first one is a photo of the view from the balcony of their place in Ibiza, run through some terrible filter because Cesc loves that shit.

 

> Cescy Beast: Look at our gorgeous house!!!
> 
> Cescy Beast: u could be here rn instead of getting teh shit kicked out of u in shit weather
> 
> Cescy Beast: Geri & Shaks army of children miss u
> 
> Cescy Beast: Lord its a literal army why the fuck did they have so many kids
> 
> King Troll of the Trolls: you know i'm in this chat yes?
> 
> Cescy Beast: the kids r killing me help
> 
> Cescy Beast: how do u make this look easy Leo???

 

Leo's laughing before he knows it, all the aches and tension he'd accumulated during the day leeching out of him as if by magic. 

 

> la pulga: its easy bc they love me.

 

As far as he can tell, he's only really good at two things: football and looking after kids. Three if he includes video games, which probably has a lot to do with the second thing.

Whenever Leo thinks about the future after retirement, he pictures a whole lot of - nothing. No demands on his time, no diet restrictions, no training sessions and physiotherapy and ice baths, and he has no idea what's going to fill that gap. He's never had nothing to work towards before. Just thinking about it makes him feel all dizzy and unsteady, like he's looking down at the pitch from the top tier of Camp Nou.

Cesc seemed to have it all figured out, when the time came. He shuffled off to China for a few years, the US for a few more, and didn't fight the inevitable like Leo so much as ease his way into it.

Then there was Gerard, who practically walked into it with open arms and a wide grin. He always seemed to be doing a million things at once, anyway, and taking playing out of the equation just left him with more time to do the rest.

His new thing is this company that does player and image management or whatever. Leo tuned out halfway through Gerard's first and second attempts at explaining and he doesn't really get it, but judging by the amount of shit Gerard's getting from Jorge Mendes' general direction he must be doing something right. Every once in awhile he swears he's going to give it up to run for Barça president, but only if Cesc gives up his boring real estate business and joins his campaign.

("Why, you wanna lose that badly?" Cesc says acidly when Gerard brings it up. He's kind of an asshole sometimes.

He's lucky Daniella puts up with him, and Antonella loves her, and Gerard's been a sucker for him since the day they met, and he stole his way in past Leo's defences years ago and continues to evade all attempts to chase him out.)

When they were looking at places in Ibiza, Leo got fifty messages a day, even when - especially when - he'd spent the entire day lying on the beach with both of them and their families.

 

 

**[a few years ago**

**Ibiza]**

 

 

> Piqueton: too small. if we get that one we're gonna need a separate house to store all your stuff.
> 
> la lepra: i dont have much stuff
> 
> Piqueton: yeah you do. the match balls alone...
> 
> la lepra: club museum has most of it. what about yours?

 

His phone doesn't buzz for a while, and Leo's about to drift off when he hears a distinct set of footsteps on the porch, shuffling closer. A Cesc-shaped shadow falls over his deck chair.

"His trophy mountain's on display at the office," Cesc says while picking up and moving Leo's feet to make room. "Got sick of typing slower than both of you and thought I'd come talk to you the old-fashioned way."

Leo taps him on the back of the head with the same unerring precision and delicate touch he uses to kill a ball coming at him at top speed. "But this way he can't see us mocking him."

"Good point. We'll just have to do it again to his face." Cesc pauses to make a pained expression. "Please get your priceless foot off my head."

"I wasn't going to actually kick you," Leo says lazily.

Cesc moves Leo's foot away from his head with the same exaggerated care as before, as if Leo's made of tissue paper. "Uh huh. If I go back there all dinged up, you're the one who'll have to deal with Daniella."

"Yeah, I'm not pissing her off."

They grin at each other, and the years seem to melt away. They could be chatting in training, or over at Leo's place in Castelldefels. Except Cesc's retired, and Leo just had his ridiculously overblown farewell, and his dad's over in Castelldefels right now packing up half the house for the move back to Rosario.

 _You know people here are going to be angry when this gets out,_ his dad had said, when it was all sorted after what felt like months of wrangling over dumb shit. As if that's ever been remotely relevant.

"You're gonna actually come live with us, right?" Cesc asks, like he's reading Leo's mind. "When we finally settle on a place, I mean."

For a split second Leo's confused about why he's even asking. "For the summer, yeah. Of course."

"What about after that? When were you gonna tell us about Newell's? I had to find out from Geri."

 _Shit. Shit._ Cesc sounds upset. Why is he upset? Leo's not equipped to deal with this. Where's Gerard when you need him?

"I didn't say anything to him," Leo says, like a moron.

Cesc narrows his eyes. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Uh. Does it?"

"Yeah, kind of. Right up until I remember that you're ditching us to get kicked around in Argentina. Why on earth?"

He says it in the exact same way Leo's kids used to when they'd tug at his shirt and ask him why he had to leave the house for the day. For some reason it really sets Leo off. Cesc's not a kid. He knows Leo's history. He doesn't get to ask why with that betrayed look on his face.

"You're the one who keeps leaving," Leo mutters. "I'll come back for good when I know you're staying put."

Cesc physically flinches. "Leo, please. You're not being fair."

"Right."

"It was rough on me too."

"I know."

If Leo were a different kind of person, he'd point out that Gerard had destroyed relationships and reputations to get Cesc back, and any idiot could see through the brave face he put on when Cesc left again.

But he's not. He gets it, and he told Cesc as much both times. Everyone does what they have to do. It's not personal, and he's not a child.

That's not the same thing as being good with it.

Cesc grabs his arm in a death grip. "You're stuck with me for life. Okay? Just believe me."

Leo's first, instinctive response is _you first_.

"I'll work on it," he says instead. "Don't worry, I still like you. Just not as much as I like Lia."  

Apparently that's the right thing to say; he can feel the tension leeching out of Cesc's body.

"I can't be mad at that."

"She's a better footballer than you. Not as good as Celia, though."

He expects Cesc to argue - nothing's guaranteed to get him worked up faster than someone even implying that his daughter is less than perfect - but he only grins wider. He doesn't even elbow Leo very hard.

"Of course you'd say that, you're her dad."

"It's true. You wanna go down to the beach and watch her make all the other kids look stupid?"

Leo's not exaggerating. He tries hard not to be disappointed that neither Thiago nor Mateo have his instant, innate love of the ball. They're good kids. That's enough. Celia, though. He knew the moment he saw her.

(Antonella says this is nonsense. Antonella is far more sensible than Leo.)

"Yeah, let's go."

Cesc stands up very gingerly and holds his hand out to Leo. With the sunlight behind him, he could be 14 or 24 instead of retired and barely able to jog above walking pace.

The way he smiles at Leo hasn't changed one bit.

*

Gerard corners him after dinner.

"What on earth did you say to Cesc?" he hisses, because he can basically read their minds at a glance. It's kind of terrifying. Leo should be used to it by now, but he keeps forgetting.

"Nothing. He found out about Newell's."

Gerard doesn't even blink. "Uh huh. And then you bought up that thing we don't talk about?"

Leo just looks at him instead of answering.

"Come on, Leo. You know it fucking crushes him when you're mean."

"You're mean to him all the time," Leo says, weirdly stung.

For some reason, that makes Gerard laugh. "That's different. He knows I'm weak."

"You are. You're softer than the Madrid defense."

Gerard gasps like he's never been so offended. "How dare you."

"Sorry. I take it back." Leo pauses. "You are, though."

"God, you're an asshole. How does anyone ever get fooled into thinking you're nice?"

"It's because I'm little."

"Yeah, you are. You're _adorable_."

It's an old joke by now; Leo elbows Gerard in the side and Gerard foregoes dodging in favour of grabbing him around the shoulder and messing up his hair. They grin at each other like kids. Then Cesc shrieks like he's being murdered, and they both glance back so they can laugh at him being tackled by five children at once.

"Real dignified, Fabregas," Gerard drawls. He's lucky Cesc's too busy rolling around to catch the look on his face, unbearably fond and full of wonder, like he can't believe this is really happening.

Leo grins. "So weak." He says it under his breath, because he's nice like that, and Gerard still basically has him in a headlock.

He can feel more than hear Gerard's long sigh. "He runs away when he needs to and come back when he needs to. You got that before I did."

"Not really," Leo says. He's trying for casual, and he's good at this, it would fool anybody. And if Gerard notices anything, he knows not to comment.

 

 

**[present day**

**Rosario]**

 

 

It's pretty late by the time Leo gets around to making his semi-regular video call, and even later in Ibiza, but Cesc still answers almost immediately, looking more bright and alert than anyone in a ridiculous Barca-themed onesie should.

So of course the first thing out of Leo's mouth is, "oh good, you shaved."

Cesc glares at him. "Shut up, my beard was magnificent."

"No, it really wasn't," Leo says drily.

"Geri liked it," Cesc pouts. He's really far too old to pout.

"If you told Geri you killed a dude he'd go get a shovel. He doesn't count."

Gerard chooses that moment to push himself into frame. "Hey, are you talking about me?"

"No," Cesc lies. "Don't hog the screen."

"I'm not. I just naturally take up more space."

Leo waits out the inevitable shoving and wrestling match, idly wishing he had popcorn. (To throw. He's not allowed to eat it.) Eventually Cesc and Gerard sort themselves out into roughly equal amounts of screen real estate.

"Hi, Leo. You ready to come back yet?"

Gerard asks every single time they talk, which is giving Leo a new appreciation and sympathy for what Cesc's life was like all those years at Arsenal.

Leo tries to give a different excuse every time. That way it's like a game, and they can laugh about it.

"Maybe when I get to a thousand goals."

The only problem is that he ran out of plausible ones a while ago.

"Please tell me you're joking. That's just a number. You don't care about that," Gerard says with devastating accuracy.

"Pele would be so pissed, though."

Surely that's worth a laugh. Leo's kind of annoyed when Cesc just gives him a familiar despairing look.

"Face it, Geri. He's not going to stop until someone stops him by destroying whatever cartilage's left in those knees."

Even he winces once the words leave his mouth, or maybe that's Gerard stomping on his foot. Subtle they are not.

"Isn't it unfair to the other clubs to have the greatest of all time playing practically for free?"

Leo rubs a hand over his face. "Oh God, not you too. I get enough of that from the media."

"I'm just saying. Without you they'd never have gotten so far in the Libertadores."

It's not really him. Mostly it's the legend of him that scares defenders these days - he has them beat before he touches a ball. That should be flattering instead of annoying.

He just doesn't want the shirt to be bigger than the person.

"What would I even do in Ibiza?"

Cesc and Gerard look at each other with badly concealed glee.

"Be the world's most overqualified babysitter? I need the help. I don't know if you've noticed, Geri, but you have _so many_  children."

Gerard ignores Cesc's ribbing with great dignity. "No, he's going to help me become club president. Don't you want to work with kids? It'd be alongside Pep, he can do all the talky stuff you hate."

Leo raises his eyebrows. "Isn't Pep retired from, like, public life?"

"Sure. But he's not retired from Barca."

"This is why I hate club politics," Cesc mutters. "But sure, that sounds good. Come help Geri become a super-villain. It's gonna be fun."

"I'll think about it," Leo says honestly. It's crazy enough that he has to at least consider it.

Gerard and Cesc high-five because they're ridiculous. Then Gerard looks at him, serious as a heart attack, so intensely that Leo has to look away.

"I guess it's our turn to wait for you to come home."

Leo opens his mouth to argue and closes it again without saying a word.

The truth is, he hadn't been waiting for Cesc and Gerard. Waiting means he expected something, and he never expected anything from football, let alone two friends who'd stand still and wait for him.

"Just let us know when you've done what you need to do."

"I will, I promise."

 

*

 

Leo's always done well by following his gut instincts. He's not used to choices that don't seem obvious.

Rosario had been obvious. It has the house he'd lived in growing up, although he can't possibly live there anymore. It has his childhood club, his favourite restaurant, and family and friends. He's treated less like a football player and more like a living miracle by people who don't ask for anything more than the occasional flash of the real Leo Messi. He knows exactly what's expected of him.

Ibiza has a beautiful house with a private beach, Gerard's army of children, and Lia. One day soon she and Milan are probably going to throw down over Thiago, and Leo hopes to be there to see it.

Everything else is uncertain, which used to scare the shit out of him. But that's starting to change.

 

*

 

"I hope you didn't choose this entirely for us," his mother says, when he asks what she thinks he should do.

"I didn't."

He means it, too, which is reassuring, because he hadn't been sure.

When he was a little kid, he'd catch her smiling at him like this out of the corner of his eye, usually when he was doing hormone injections. It took him years to understand why she looked like her heart was breaking. "I'm glad. You've done enough just for us."

He hasn't, but it makes him proud that she thinks he has.

 

*

 

"You know what I want," Antonella says.

(Occasionally Leo remembers to be thankful he somehow made her fall for him before she met Daniella. That's a relationship no man can get in between.)

"Thanks for sticking with me."

She laughs at the sappy expression on his face. "You're not so bad."

 

*

 

At some point, someone had changed the name of their group chat to _AWESOME BEACH HOUSE (JUST ADD BALLON D'ORS)_.

   

> la pulga: any room in that house for us?
> 
> Cescy Beast: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> King Troll of the Trolls: you know it!!!

 

* * *

 

**Notes:**

  1. Maxi here is intended to be Maxi Rodriguez, a fellow Rosario-born footballer who at the time of writing actually plays for Newell's Old Boys. He and Leo have been international team mates since 2005.


  1. Newell's are of course Leo's hometown club, who he played for as a kid. Though he and the club have had their disagreements, Leo's support for Newell's has been a constant and he backed up that support a few years ago with a donation to keep their junior training camp open. He has also talked on and off about ending his career in Argentina with them.


  1. 'Pibe' is a very Argentinian football thing, and kind of essential to the jigsaw puzzle that makes up Leo Messi. Here, [I'll let Jonathan Wilson explain it](http://8by8mag.com/why-argentina-doesnt-love-her-best-player/): " _The archetype runs back to the earliest days of the sport on the continent, in the first decade of the twentieth century, when football began to establish an identity distinct from that of the British ex-pats who had established the game in the country. If Argentina wanted to erect a statue to its footballing spirit, the journalist Borocoto wrote in El Grafico in 1928, it should depict “a pibe with a dirty face, a mane of hair rebelling against the comb; with the intelligent, roving, trickster and persuasive eyes and a sparkling gaze that seem to hint at a picaresque laugh that does not quite manage to form on his mouth, full of small teeth that might be worn down by eating yesterday’s bread._ "


  1. Antonella Roccuzzo is the cousin of Leo's childhood best friend. [They've known each other since they were kids](http://36.media.tumblr.com/9839ebb0251beab8c27b132e0fcd8f87/tumblr_nj2afoouMS1tdhdr3o1_500.jpg) and she was the cute girl he couldn't get to notice him. Sometime in 2008 Leo went back to Rosario on holiday and they clicked. After that, they managed the remarkable feat of keeping their relationship from the media for more than a year until Messi himself told a TV show that he had a girlfriend who was living in Argentina at the time, completing her studies. At the time of writing they have two kids, Thiago and Mateo.


  1. Central refers to Rosario Central, the cross-town rivals of Newell's.


  1. At the Barcelona academy, the class of 1987 were known as the Baby Dream Team, which is itself a reference to Barca's Dream Team of the early 90s, winners of the club's first ever European Cup/Champions League. [These days, the class of 1987 is chiefly famous for producing Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique and Leo Messi](http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/fabregas-messi-pique-class-of-2002-1928682.html).


  1. 'la pulga' is a popular nickname for Leo, meaning 'the flea'.


  1. [Children love Leo Messi.](http://i.imgur.com/ZeSwSOH.gifv) ([Here's Leo with Thiago and Cesc's daughter Lia.](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/97626245681/meretricula-write-dead-of-baby-dream-team) [Here's Cesc's stepson teaching Leo to skateboard](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/74455675900/meretricula-skating-on-a-sunday-first-time).) 


  1. Gerard Pique has a lot going on besides his playing career. (Among other things, he has a start-up that employs 30 people and makes a pretty successful mobile game.) He has often spoken of his desire to one day be president of Barca. Oh, and he's the partner of international superstar Shakira. At the time of writing they have two kids, Milan and Sasha.


  1. Cesc Fabregas met his partner Daniella Semann at a Japanese restaurant in London sometime around 2011, thanks in part to her football-mad son. At the time of writing they have two kids, Lia and Capri. Daniella and Anto are really good friends ([she calls Anto 'wifey'!](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/97469670284/wifey-dont-mind-me-im-just-dying-of-cute)) and they still hang out when they can. 


  1. Cesc, Leo and Gerard's families [hang out](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/35455391180/meretricula-fyleonella-it-was-a-beautiful), [take vacations together](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/55309331159%20) and generally [give off the impression that they'd spend even more time together if it weren't for silly things like distance](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/113039629931/inmymessiworld-messi-piqu%C3%A9-and-cesc-in). [They also joke about their kids getting together, as you do](http://stickmarionette.tumblr.com/post/93467066311/lailamessi-lia-looooool-i-cant-even). 


  1. Since his second departure from Barca, Cesc's reputation among the support has - how do I put this - deteriorated badly. (It's complicated; some of it is his fault, some isn't.)


  1. Okay, so. Cesc, Gerard and Leo getting a big house together in Ibiza is kind of the joint brain child of meretricula and I. (More Beach House in Ibiza related things [here](http://meretricula.tumblr.com/post/126480169333) and [here](http://meretricula.livejournal.com/239490.html).)


  1. 'la lepra' is the nickname given to Newell's supporters. Hopefully I don't have to [explain Piqueton](http://missmollyetc.livejournal.com/452505.html) because I really can't. 


  1. Celia is the name of Leo's mother and grandmother (aka the woman who introduced him to football).


  1. The Copa Libertadores is South America's Champions League.



**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. All feedback gratefully received.


End file.
